I’m all for t-shaped team members, I’ve always tried to be one of them….. To a point.
However, it can be taken too far.
In one team I worked with, it was decided that testers and developers should all be known as ‘engineers’ and that people in both roles should be T-shaped.
This created a problem!!
The developers soon got annoyed when they realised that they were testing as much as they were coding.
While the testers who could not code, didn’t have the motivation or even the time to learn as one of the them was more focused on securing a hands off test manager role.
The solution was to bring in a hands-on tester, letting the developers go back to doing what they enjoyed and move the other tester into a more appropriate role.
Soon after the team stabilised, productivity and morale increased as well.
I learnt a few things from this one
- You cannot force people into being T-shaped, or to learn skills that don’t interest them, they will leave.
- You cannot, or rather should not hide skill/resource gaps by ‘going t-shaped’, covering gaps short term is good, but as the norm? Definitely not
- You should, as usual, look for the root cause that prompted the team to go down this route. Solve the actual problem
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